Sanguine
by DomesticatedWerewolves
Summary: AU. Captain Seto Kaiba of the HMS Sangfroid has trifled with the best of them, and is famous in the Royal Navy for his impeccable broadside. But what defense does he have against a challenge greater than the French armies? Puppyshipping Seto x Jounouchi


Kana: (currently DEAD) Ugh…UGH…

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Yugioh, would I be here? It is the property of a Japanese GOD

**Season Four, Round One of ComputerFreak's YGO Contest:** _Puppyshipping_. Lots of Navy lingo, so have a nautical dictionary ready. And by the way, my British slang _blows_, I'm ashamed of myself. WARNING: Duh, it's yaoi. As in boy screwing another boy _up the ass_ (though there's none of that _here_). Give me crap about it in a hateful review and I _will_ beat you down, and then beat you up again.

**Summary:** Captain Seto Kaiba of the HMS _Sangfroid _has trifled with the best of them, and is famous in the Royal Navy for his impeccable broadside. But what defense does he have against a challenge greater than the French armies?

OOOOO

**Sanguine **

**One-Shot**

OOOOO

The waters of the English Channel are cold and dark, like new tar. If not for the white caps that appeared when waved clashed, there would have been no distinction between the black sea, and the black night. Seto leaned over the gangway, watching snowflakes get swallowed under the surface. An Easterly wind was blowing in from the Continent, bringing with it smells of low-tide and salt, making the sails belly out and the masts groan under the strain.

His ship. _His_. Captain Kaiba was very possessive of his ship, a lovely fifth-rate frigate, able to house forty guns and accommodate his crew nicely, all the way down to the last midshipman. He liked having her in tip-top shape, with her sails full and the deck free of grime. Any less would result in a darkening of his mood, which was usually avoided at all costs.

Suddenly the bow pitched forward, sending the scuttlebutt bucket sliding across the deck for a moment, before it struck the foremast and tipped over, spilling cold water all over the forecastle and onto third lieutenant Bakura, who sputtered awake. _Why did it toss so?_ Seto thought, his frown deepening.

"Your mother's a slapper!" Bakura gurgled, obviously half-asleep as he looked about him, waiting for some kind of cutlass to slice him through. When he found none, his face, the skin tan from years of clutching the top of the royal yard and his Egyptian heritage, paled when his eyes came upon a very irritated Seto.

"Have you _no_ respect?" Kaiba asked, tapping a polished black boot. Mr. Bakura nodded. "Go stand out on the bow and dry your coat before you catch something and die on us. Call Mr. Ishtar to replace you, it's his shift anyway."

With a half-hearted and sleepy salute, Bakura was hurrying aft-ward towards the ladders. Seto was able to hear him stomp down into the berth deck, as the night was utterly quiet, save for the faint slashing of waves so far below. He was satisfied when he heard the cries of 'sweet Christ', coming from none other than the second lieutenant himself. A small scuffle ensued, but was quickly quieted – obviously by first lieutenant Mutou, or perhaps his assistant, Mr. Ryou – and soon both Mr. Bakura and Ishtar were dragging their feet heavily with fatigue. Ishtar was already knotting his long platinum hair into a casual bun, as the Navy was not fond of hair such as his. It stuck out haphazardly, but, although crude, as effective.

"Good God, Captain, do you sleep?" Ishtar whined, shrugging on his blue coat, which reached to the middle of his calves, as did all their informal coats, just as Bakura was peeling off his sopping one. "There's no French within ten miles of us, so why have lookouts?"

"Because I would rather be safe than sorry." Seto said, his eyes half-lidded and calm as he watched the water lap at the side of the _HMS Sangfroid_; the name was ironic, compared to its crew. "Or would you rather have Bonaparte himself standing over you when you wake, his knife at your jugular?"

"I would rather die and sleep than be up doing cadet work," Bakura grumbled, his voice low but clear as he shivered, holding up his coat to the biting wind, the tails blowing back. "I will surely freeze up here." He said wistfully.

"Shut up and dry that damn coat," Mr. Ishtar snapped, climbing up onto the shroud of the foremast and holding onto it as he stretched upward, trying to see farther, probably in hopes of spotting a French frigate and starting a battle. If any appeared, there was no doubt in the crew's mind that they would have taken the ship into port with them, and the prize money would have been bountiful. But no ship was in sight.

Seto was going to go back to watching the snowflakes and the ocean, but something caught his eye as it floated in the water.

"Ay! Waveson in the water! Wake the men!" He bellowed, nearly making Mr. Ishtar roll off the shroud and over the bulwark. The frigate must have lurched from the wave the sinking ship made.

"_Bugger and blast!_" Ishtar cried, grabbing hold of a ratline before he could tumble into the water.

Bakura scrambled to the gangway, peering over and seeing the crates and planks floating on the surface of the cold sea. His cloudy eyes widened and, his damp coat forgotten on the deck of the forecastle as he clambered over the ship, pounding his feet as Ishtar did the same, effectively waking the crew.

The _Sangfroid _was a small frigate, with a small crew of three hundred men, most of them bosun and cadets, but all of them came to the spar deck, leaning precariously over the sides in search of the main shipwreck.

"There!" His first lieutenant cried, pointing wildly at a cluster of timber and ropes floating ten yards away from the frigate. The limp body of a young blond man was lying on what looked to be the remains of the broken ship's garboard. It was apparent that the man was either unconscious or dead, and that one of them was going to have to swim across the cold water to get to him.

Silence swept across the ship as the men looked at each other, not all that keen to going for a swim in the Channel, especially in December.

Finally, Mr. Ryou shrugged off his jacket and boots, leaving himself exposed to the frosty air in nothing but his breeches, stockings, and linen shirt. "You're all a bunch of cowards." He mumbled, diving off the edge and into the water, stifling his shout of surprise once he hit the frigid water.

The silence continued as the long heaves of Ryou brought him steadily closer towards the man. His long hair was slowing him down, but in due time he had reached the large board. "He's breathing!"

Seto rounded on the crew. "Well, what are you waiting for?! Get them up here!"

And it was done, nearly every single man jumped into the water. Seto pinched the bridge of his nose as a storm of curses, screams, and blasphemous shouts came from the water. He walked over to the rope ladder and hurled it over, wondering how the morons were going to heave the young man up the rope…

"Kaiba!"

Looking down, Seto saw Mr. Mutou holding up the broken remains of the ship's escutcheon as he kicked to stay afloat. The black paint scrawled _Sanguine_ across the board. There was no _HMS _or any other identification of allegiance to a country, so there was only one explanation…

"Hell," Kaiba groaned. "It's a pirating ship."

On the horizon, going unnoticed by all, was the disappearing form of another, bigger frigate. A French flag snapped and waved wildly in the wind, the jackstaff straining as the blizzard increased.

OOOOO

"I say we stow him in the lazaretto." Dr. Otogi growled as Bakura and Ishtar – the ablest men on board - dragged the young man onto a sterile white bed in the sick bay. It was a clean, nearly barren area, save for one man moaning on the other side of the twenty-by-twenty room, with a bandage wrapped around his side from being struck with a wood splinter the size of a belaying pin. Sea sick men did not come down here, as the sick bay was on the berth deck closest to the bow, and even the slightest wave caused the bay to pitch forward and back. "I will not tolerate pirates in my -."

"You will nurse him back to full health and _like it_." Kaiba snapped, crossing his arms. He nodded towards the two lieutenants, and dismissed them. It was still night out, and he heard them return to the wardroom to sleep at their liberty. As he was sure most of the crew was going to be sick in bed for half a fortnight with common colds, he allowed them to do so.

"Why not let him die?" Otogi asked, scrutinizing the man with a practiced eye. Two midshipmen had stripped off his soaked clothes and gave him a pair of breeches and a shirt stolen from a cadet. But there was nothing to be done about his blond hair, which still dripped. The medic's own black hair was up in a tail, and it made Seto wonder if his ship was the only one with such hairstyles.

"I want him kicking and screaming when he hangs." Seto hissed, looking down at the blond pirate. His lips were parted slightly as Otogi took a towel – heated by laying it atop the furnace that was installed crudely in the sick bay – and began to rub his chest with it until he began to shiver violently, and continued until the towel began to cool down.

"Mokuba, pray get me another towel." Otogi asked his runner, who scurried back the furnace with the used towel, laid it on the rounded top, and snagged the other one lying there. He repeated the process over and over, until the pirate had stopped shivering and was sleeping peacefully, his breathing even.

"Any injuries?" Seto asked, his blue eyes darting to every inch of the boy's body as it lay on the bed.

"Other than substantial bruising and slight hypothermia, he'll live." Otogi murmured, pressing the man's chest. The pirate's breath suddenly hitched. "Add a bruised rib to that list." He smirked slightly and pressed around the area, finding the exact rib, but the man kept sleeping, never showing another sign of pain. "Hmm, looks to be forth rib; cracked, surely."

Otogi took out a long metal tube, and pressed it to the man's chest, listening intensively, his eyes flicking about in thought. "He has water in his lungs…"

"Then get it out." Seto said, stating the obvious.

"If only it was that simple," Otogi watched the young man for a moment. "He won't wake for a few days if left to his own devices, and it will do more harm than if he was still floating on that board."

"So…wake him up." Kaiba shifted his weight onto his right leg, his left knee beginning to ache more each time the ship swayed on a wave.

"Once again, not that simple," The black-haired medic turned toward his runner. "Fetch me a few more quilts from Mr. Mutoh. He won't mind." Seto winced. Lieutenant Yami _would_ mind; he would mind a lot. His officers on board were mostly Egyptian, and had many blankets to cover themselves. Though English law did not require him to pay the foreigners as much as Europeans, Seto was Japanese himself, and paid them handsomely – usually it was spent on such blankets.

Otogi took out two extra pillows from a chest, and grabbed the injured man's shirt front, and pulled him up off the bed slightly. He stuffed the pillows under him, effectively propping him up. "Now he won't drown in his sleep. He might even cough it up before the time comes for him to wake."

"When will he wake?" Seto asked, hearing the soft plods of Mokuba's feet as he scurried into the wardroom and ripped the blankets of Yami.

"One or two days at the most," Otogi said, eyeing his handiwork. "What will we do when he does?"

"We'll have something for him to do." Seto narrowed his eyes, already thinking of dog's work that was perfect for the pirate.

OOOOO

Captain Seto almost instantly forgot about the injured blond man, as – in his opinion – he had the rowdiest men ever to be put into a crew in the history of His Majesty's Navy. If he wasn't cutting one of his lieutenants out of a shroud or watching them swing from the crosstrees with amusement, he was checking his precious guns, making sure they were devoid of all debris.

But he couldn't keep it out of his mind for long. And on the second night, and from there on after, it was impossible.

Kaiba had been sitting in his small cabin, writing letters at his desk, when the incident happened.

_Dear --_ (he could not remember the lad's name)

_It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that your son has perished. He was a gallant man, full of life that lifted the spirits of my crew. But do not be in utter misery, as he died as he would have lived, fearing nothing but the wrath of Almighty God._

_- Captain Seto Kaiba_

He hated writing letters like this. They made him feel small, like his ship sailing in the vast ocean, with walls closing in around him, death upon him, as it narrowly missed him and grasped one close to him. He had seen men die, a cannonball striking their chest and splitting them haphazardly, with both ends flying in either direction. A man dear to his heart had had his head cleaved in with the broadsword of a Frenchman, right before the murderer was struck in the neck by a piece of shrapnel from his own ship.

Men died every day, in the chaos of battle, and it usually wasn't known until the fight was over, and you realize that a man that had been fighting next to you had been slaughtered by a ball that you never felt. It was hell.

It was war.

His men were having a moment of collective peace, eating their supper upon the spar deck, and Seto could hear their shouting and loud guffaws. His hand steadied. He was ashamed to admit that he was glad that it was only a midshipman that had died – though he lied, because he did not die in battle, but after falling overboard and catching pneumonia – and not one of his other men. Mutoh was the best of his crew, and he wouldn't know what to do without Bakura or Ishtar making ruckus or joking of life. He would have surely gone mad by now.

Seto's pen began to shake. He felt the walls of death, closing in, faster…harder, increasing in strength. He made a move to rise from his seat – with difficulty, as it was nailed to the floor – but the sound of a pistol cocking made him freeze. The coils of frigidness closed in on his heart, making his skin pale.

They say you never hear the shot that kills you, so Seto knew that when he heard a mind numbing _bang!_ that he had not been hit. But what had made the familiar _thud_ of a body hitting the deck?

When his muscles finally listened to his brain, Seto turned around.

Two fawn-colored eyes hazily glared down at the body of a Frenchman, blood blossoming on the assassin's coat. His savior dropped the pistol he held, obviously stolen from the gunroom, letting it land on the floor as his knees buckled and he fell to the floor, shivering violently.

Kaiba scowled, but ripped a quilt off his bed and wrapped it around the shoulders of the man, helping him up. Some of his crew – driven by the sound of the shot – appeared at his door.

"Pray one of you get the man something hot to eat, or he'll freeze." Seto said gruffly.

The pirate was awake.

OOOOO

Being the man that Seto was, his mind wanted him to shove the pirate into the magazine and throw in a match, but instead he treated him like he did his crew. He gave him a plate of hash and a flask of brandy, and let him sit in the sick bay as he ate as close to the furnace as he could. He still shivered, but the warm brandy helped calm his nerves.

"What is your name?" Seto demanded as soon as the man had finished, wrapping himself contentedly in the quilt Kaiba had given him.

"Why do you wish to know?" The pirate asked, with a heavy Japanese accent. Seto's narrowed eyes widened slightly. So he was a foreigner as well.

"So that I may be able to address you properly."

"Bilge-water!" The pirate said, his honey-colored eyes sparking dangerously. Seto's hand involuntarily went to his pistol. "You just want the executioner to be able to have a name for the man that dances with Jack Ketch." He sneered.

Kaiba cursed his luck. Of course the pirate would speak in the terrible slang the criminals were known for. It would make it all the harder to keep his temper in check – and make it damn difficult to understand him. "Come now, can't we exchange formalities like agreeable gentleman?" He ground out.

The pirate made a haughty sniff, but peered at him curiously. "You're not going to make me kiss the gunner's daughter?"

The formidable captain flipped through his mental book of pirate sayings that he had learned sporadically over the years. To 'kiss the gunner's daughter' was to be held over a cannon and flogged. The pirate thought he was going to beat him to death.

"Did I not just call myself a proper gentleman?" Seto inquired.

"I don't think of any navy man as a 'proper gentleman.'" The pirate hissed. "All they care about is their own purse."

"Don't pirates have that same thought pattern?"

"Nay!" The man snapped. "My crew would never betray each other, as I have heard the Navy men do! Pirates are not as deceiving to one another as we are to those who have not joined the account."

"Perhaps you are but a misjudged breed?" Seto asked, amusement tinting his voice.

The pirate laughed heartily. "I wouldn't go so far as to say that. We're still a gang of scheming dogs – but a gang of loyal scheming dogs. I prefer the term 'corsair.'"

"So," Seto held out a hand, helping the pirate up. "Shall I go first?"

"Aye."

"Very well. I am Seto Kaiba, captain of the _HMS Sangfroid_; and I thank you for saving my life."

"Katsuya Jounouchi;" The pirate grinned mischievously. It looked as if they were shaking hands. "Captain of the independent _Sanguine_."

There was still a month left before Seto had to return to report to his main officer, and he wasn't supposed to arrive at port unless he captured a French ship. Kaiba used this excuse to tell himself that he was not prolonging the pirate's life, but abiding rules.

_Right?_

OOOOO

Captain Seto Kaiba yawned, cracking his neck as he slowly climbed up the ladder to the spar deck, his skin crawling from the cold and lack of sleep. He was exhausted, but his temper refused to rise. It had something to do with the fact that the Channel was in a temporary clam after the blizzard, and he hadn't woken up the night before from the ship pitching forward and back.

The air was unseasonably warm, and it blew his hair back, cooling his sweaty skin. Seto sighed in relief; the lower decks were sweltering even in early spring, due to all the hot-blooded bodies heaped together in such a small space.

Screaming caught his attention, and Seto hurried to the source upon the forecastle. As he got closer, he detected excited squealing and gruff, amused yelling.

"Use your deadlights, boy!" Jounouchi cackled, hanging onto the buntline as he swung back and forth. Mokuba was aiming a small handful of pistol balls at him, and every time he missed – or stuck the pirate – he cried out in delight. "You'll never hit the broadside of a barn with that kind of aim!"

"It might be because he has no real gun!" Bakura yelled from all the way on the topsail yard. His cheeks were sunburned, making the already dark tan even darker. He was pulling at the bowline of the topsail, looking harried. "Now finished the work I gave you, dammit!"

"_No_." Jounouchi stuck out his tongue, a gesture that amused Seto, as he had never seen a full grown gentleman do such a thing. "Why should I do Navy work? Are you not going to place me on the black spot as soon as we port?"

"Are you going to annoy all of us to death then?" Mutoh commented from below, where he and Mr. Ryou secured a few ropes on the foresail. "Or would you prefer we shoot you?"

Jounouchi grinned happily, kicking off from the foremast and careening wildly around it. Finally, he spotted Seto down below. "Ahoy to ship!" he yelled, cupping a hand to his mouth.

"Ahoy to air!" Kaiba said back, smiling ever so slightly. "Are you dead set on aggravating my men?"

"Perhaps…" Jounouchi loosened his gripping, sliding down the rope a bit. "What do you want?" he hung upside down, his blond hair flopping everywhere.

"I'll make a deal with you…"

A deal? With a pirate? It was as if Kaiba had just declared himself King. Silence wafted over the ship, until only the sound of waves sloshing against the ship could be heard. "Really?" Jounouchi cocked his head to one side as his wild swinging slowed to a slight wavering in the air. "And what might that be?"

"If you do the work that my officers assign to you, I'll give you pay equal to that of the rest of my crew." Seto's face stretched into a smug grin as Jounouchi suddenly began to scurry up and down the ropes, tugging at them.

"Do we have the liberty to pay him?" lieutenant Yami whispered.

"We need the extra hands," Seto responded, fiddling with the white gloves upon his hands. "And besides, dead men need no money."

"Too true," Mutoh watched Jounouchi with a solemn eye. "But I wonder; he saved you, Captain, is it not honorable to, in turn, save him?"

Kaiba's eyes were half-lidded as he thought. He seemed emotionless save for a look of calm contemplation. "I am saving him. It is law that all pirates be hanged, and anyone who hides one will be too. Are you willing to lose a Captain to a pirate?"

"No, sir." Yami sighed. He unbuttoned his coat as midday arrived in a flurry of unnatural heat.

"So then," Kaiba's lips twitched into a thin smile. "Let's make it so that, when we port, we have no pirates on board."

OOOOO

Seto twitched as Jounouchi whined, and shut the latter up quickly with a small jerk of his cravat. "Stop acting like a child."

"How can you do work in – _ugh_ – this?" Jounouchi made a strangled gasp, as if he was being choked to death, as Kaiba finally tied the borrowed cravat correctly, and sat back to admire his handiwork.

"What are you talking about?" Seto looked down at himself. He was wearing the same thing, though his coat had the insignia of a captain. It was better than the uniform they wore for formal occasions. He doubted if he had ever seen his men loosen a button on their coats without turning red around the ears. "I can move freely in this."

"Well, I can't." Jounouchi pulled the tight cravat undone and unbuttoned the blue coat Kaiba had loaned him, so he wouldn't catch a fever. He then pulled the white linen shirt a bit, taking out the top button and exposing his throat. "There. No man can work properly like that – it would be like making me work in a bonnet and dress."

_God_, Seto had never conversed with a pirate before, and now that he did, he found that they were nothing like him, or anything like the stereotype. Jounouchi was not savage, but he wasn't a gentleman either. He was something…new. Kaiba found himself staring at the skin exposed on his throat.

After Jounouchi leaves, Kaiba shoved his head into a basin of water and waits until his lungs scream for air before coming back up. His face still burned red-hot. "Christ…"

OOOOO

_Thud. Thud. Thud. THUD._

"Dammit, Mr. Katsuya!" Seto angrily rubbed an eye as, for the fifth time in seven days, he was woken by the ruckus caused by the pirate. He blinked as he opened the hatch to the spar deck, letting in the stark white light of early morning. "What are you doing this time?"

"Aye, I'm not going anything," Jounouchi said from behind him, startling Seto. He was sitting on the fife rail of the mainmast, staring out into the ocean with a spyglass. "And that sound is not my doing."

Kaiba followed the pirates gaze, looking out onto the horizon. At first all he saw was the cold blue of the winter sky, but then it became clear – a French frigate sailing directly for them, with all the flags flying. The _thud_ sounds came from the soldiers running across the deck of the foreign ship.

"I smell a good battle," Jounouchi murmured, stretching his neck out to feel the breeze. "Smells like gunpowder and salt."

Seto's eyes became half-lidded as he watched the ship. "Shall we?" he held out his arm

"We shall." Jounouchi linked arms with him, grinning.

They plunged into battle together.

OOOOO

"So, Captain Seto Kaiba, is it?"

"Yes sir." Seto bowed his head in respect as the admiral read over his report. "Of the _HMS Sangfroid_."

The admiral chortled. "I know of that ship. Brought in that French gunner less than half a fortnight ago, did it?" His cheeks were red from alcohol, and Kaiba knew it was from celebration. Half his crew had the same facial hue from the very night they brought the frigate in.

"Yes sir. Forth rate."

"_Ready, heave!" Jounouchi's order was clear as it traveled through the air thick with smoke from the guns. The crew took a moment to lean towards the side, making the ship groan again. This had been going on for half an hour, and the small amount of force they generated had finally created something of use. _

_The ship tilted far to the right, the side sinking slightly. The cannons aimed lower…_

"How did you capture a ship bigger than yours?"

_The cannons all fired at once. A ball from the French frigate that would have hit the bulwark instead sailed over it, smashing through the opposite gangway and causing only light injuries; Kaiba felt a splinter the size of a sparrow whir by the side of his head, scraping his cheek. Their guns all hit their mark, slashing through the opposing ship's hold, into the shot locker. One ball hit the end of the stern and damaged the rudder. _

_Seto's men cheered_.

"It's a bit of a long tale." Kaiba could not hide his satisfied smirk.

"I'm sure even the dregs of it will be most exciting." The admiral leaned back in his chair. "But before we go into that, I've had reports of a pirate ship sinking off the coast of Hastings. Did you happen to pass by there, Captain?"

Seto's eyes shined with pride. "Yes sir."

"And?"

"There were no survivors."

Kaiba made a mental note to give Jounouchi his share of the winnings for taking in the French frigate.

OOOOO

Kana: HO-LY SHLIT. -.- TEN freaking pages! Ten! Be nice a review for me, please? It'll make me happy…(falls asleep) It's nearly three AM here, and I woke up at six today. Thank god its Friday – well, now it's Saturday.

REVIEW (Read it first though, or else there's no sense in reviewing. Sides, it's good…right?)


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